Newsday from New York, New York • 13

Stalemated ed Newspaper Talks Resume New York--Negotiations between striking pressmen and the publishers of three daily newspapers were to resume today, though a federal mediator said that he had found neither side ready to make "any major concessions." The mediator, Kenneth Moffett, said he spoke with both sides yesterday after talks broke down Wednesday night, revealing strains among the publishers. The breakdown of the talks came after the pressmen's union president, William Kennedy, announced that he had received a new offer from the publishers. The New York Times confirmed that the offer had been made, but the Daily News said it hadn't been. Either way, Kennedy said, he found the offer unsatisfactory. As the three papers remained shuttered, other publications were appearing on the sidewalks of New York.

The city's first "strike daily," the City News, appeared yesterday. It was published by a company that produces six community city weeklies and staffed by reporters from the closed papers. At the same time, two other new papers- -the tabloid-sized Daily Metro, published by Frederick Iseman, a deputy opinion-page editor of the New York Times; and the Daily Press, published by Mark Stern of Florida, who ran strike papers in Detroit and St. Louis- announced that they hoped to begin publication this weekend. But a fourth strike paper- the New York Observer, backed and staffed by many of the same people who published the shortlived Trib earlier this year- abandoned efforts to publish without ever having printed an edition.

Beginning Sunday, city-owned radio station WNYC-AM will revive what the station termed a "newspaper strike tradition" begun by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia when he read the comics over the airwaves. The station announced that it would broadcast columns, reviews, sports and entertainment information. Meanwhile, at a meeting of the Allied Printing Trades Council, an umbrella organiztion of city newspaper unions, Council President George McDonald said, "We want to let the publishers know that this Allied Printing Trade. Council is not going to sit idly by and see a Washington Post or any similar situation take place in the City of New York." The reference was to a prolonged and bitter strike by pressman at the Washington Post, who were replaced by non-unionized help. Last night, another newspaper union, the paperhandlers, set up picket lines at the News and the Times and announced that they would beging picketing the Post at 6 AM this morning.

That is the second union to have joined the pressman in striking the city's papers. The first, the machinists -who repair the newspaper equipment voted to go on strike Wednesday. McDonald also announced yesterday that the stereotypers and electricians unions were considering strikes in support of the pressmen. The 1,600 striking pressmen walked off their jobs. Aug.

9 to protest work rules that management said would have reduced work forces in the pressrooms of the three dailies by about onethird. City News GOV TO UNIONS: IT'S YOUR NET 139 PRATING LOCAL INION to 2. ON UPI Photo Passerby tries new city newspaper while passing picket line at Daily News Paper Never Hits Stands Combined News Services New York- a day after it was first conceived, the New York Observer is dead, nipped in the bud by a publisher's uncertainty about the length of the pressmen's strike. According to would-be executive editor Harry Welker, the would-be publisher, Raymond A. Learsy, was not sure that the paper could gain a solid audience between its proposed Wednesday inauguration date and the time when the New York Post, The New York Times and the Daily News would be back on the streets.

"It would have been a great financial venture," Welker said yesterday afternoon, only 20 minutes after learning that the project had been dropped. "We would have had to use the duration to launch and establish on a solid basis If the strike was of a short duration, we could have found ourselves in trouble." Learsy, who experienced failure earlier this year with the short-lived Trib, was unavailable for comment. The planners for the enterprise had acquired space on Fifth Avenue and had alerted about 80 top newsmen from the three struck New York papers to be ready to go to work prior to the publication day, next Wednesday. A complete news staff of about 110 had been planned. The assistant publisher and editor was to have been Leonard Andrews, who was associate publisher of the New York Standard, an interim paper published during the 114-day newspaper strike of 1962-63.

The planners of the Observer had made negotiations for news agency service worldwide and had intended to have correspondents in major cities nationwide. Asked about the format planned for the tabloid-sized publication and its general attitude, Welker said: "It would have looked like a dehydrated Washington Post." Asked if the staff was looking for another publisher, Welker said he liked the idea but said it had not been discussed. Board of Estimate ate Passes Five for Queens -Continued from Page 5 fore it becomes part of the constitution. In other actions affecting Queens, the Board of Estimate also approved a resolution allowing the city's Division of Real Property to lease a lot at 132-05 Atlantic Richmond Hill, to the city's Sanitation Department for use as a garage. It granted the Division of Real Property permission to sell a lot at 145th Avenue and 233rd Street in Laurelton to anyone who would develop it for non-profit, recreational use.

rized the city to lease 53 acres to the The board approved a plan by the Hunts Point Plaza a private deBreezy Point Cooperative Inc. to con- velopment firm that plans to spend $15 struct two jetties near Breezy Point on million on the construction of a truck the Rockaway peninsula to prevent ero- stop near the huge produce market in sion of the beach. A request by St. the Bronx. The truck stop would take John's Episcopal Hospital in Rockaway three years to build and would include a to build an elevated footbridge between motel, a restaurant, a bank and recreathe hospital and Brookhaven Beach tional facilities.

The lease would run for Nursing Home across the street also 35 years with two options for renewal. was approved. The rent would be begin at $1.8 million In another action, the board autho- a year and rise to $2.3 million. City Hopes to Sell Bonds Again Washington (AP)-New York City will try to re-enter the public lending market this fall, marking its first attempt at selling notes since it was forced to withdraw a city issue last November. If successful, "it will be our first time in the market since the winter of 1975," an aide to Philip Toia, deputy mayor for finance, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

Word of the offering- $100 million in notes, probably in November-came as the city worked on its fouryear, refinancing plan and an $800-million short-term borrowing program. The plan, with the help of recently approved loan guarantees from the federal government, is aimed at solving fiscal problems that surfaced four years ago, pushing the city near bankruptcy. The public sale will be the first of three planned in quick succession as part of the city's short-term borrowing, said the Toia aide, who asked that his name not be used. Should the sales in November, January and February fail, he said, ma jor New York banks and pension funds an extended Labor Day holiday without will be asked to purchase the notes. appropriating the money for the guarThe city's last attempt to move away antees, but the measure was scheduled from a federal bail -out and into the for action on Sept.

6, the day the conpublic market collapsed last November gressmen return. It also must be apwhen Moody's Investor Service gave a proved by the Senate. proposed $200-million note issue its The city has been in trouble with lowest rating and the city was forced to lenders since late 1974, when thenwithdraw. Mayor Abraham D. Beame began layThe aide and others involved in city ing off civil servants to try to cut city finances said they thought the 1978 of- expenses and preserve its credit.

By fering would fare better because of New spring of the following year, the city York City's highly publicized efforts to could raise no money at all. In Decembring its budget and spending into bal- ber, 1975, Congress authorized the U.S. ance and to refinance its $12-billion Treasury to make up to $2.3 million in debt, all accomplished under federal federal loans to the city. and state supervision. Congressmen had hoped the initial Also likely to assist market confi- -out would allow the city to put its dence is congressional approval by wide books in order and re-enter the public margins last month of $1.65 billion in lending market, but the city was forced loan guarantees, which will be used to to return to the Senate and House for secure New York bonds sold to city and money again this year.

state pension funds. The bill was signed Although the loan-guarantee proby President Carter in a New York gram has some provisions for short: ceremony last week. term borrowing, its aim is long-term reThe House recessed on Thursday for financing. The board then authorized the mayor's Office of Midtown Development to work out an arrangement with the state's Urban Development Corp. and Portman Properties an Atlanta hotel-planning firm, to build a luxury hotel at 45th Street and Broadway.

The construction could start next year. Early in the meeting, a representative of City Controller Harrison J. Goldin announced that Goldin would support Bellamy's Westway resolution. That resolution, while not specifically mentioning highway projects such as Westway, asserts the right of the Board of Estimate to maintain control over them. If it were to pass, the resolution could force a legal showdown with Koch, whose counsel ruled last month that the mayor has final say over Westway.

Bellamy and Goldin oppose construction of the $1.2 billion, 4.5-mile highway. The mayor supports it. The resolution will be considered at the board's next meeting on Sept. 14. It failed to get three-quarters of the votes during Wednesday's executive session, the support it needed to be put it on yesterday's agenda.

However, it needs only a clear majority next time. With the controller and four of five borough presidents indicating support, it appeared assured of a hearing. Board members used a new voting procedure yesterday, instituted under a bill signed by Gov. Hugh Carey last week. The law, initiated by the city's Charter Review Committee, cuts the number of weighted votes in half.

It gives the mayor, the controller and the and the borough presidents one each. City Council president two votes each.